Heretofore, tires for vehicles have had fluorescent or phosphorescent particles mixed or implanted within the rubber mixture of a fire in order to give bright reflective, or afterglow characteristics. Examples of such tires can be found in Great Britain Patent No. 2,265,586 to Hare and Japanese Patent Application No. HEI3-160039 by Fukomoto. Generally, a fluorescent substance has no afterglow because the light emitted from the fluorescent substance decays immediately after removal from the source of excitation.
A problem with the prior art incorporation of phosphorescent or fluorescent material into the rubber composition of a tire, is that the resulting product still shows minimal afterglow even though a high amount of phosphorescent/fluorescent pigment is used.